Philosopher meme
Photo by MidLifered on Imgflip
Memes. Who hasn’t heard of them? They’ve been around for decades and have progressed so much. One of the first memes to ever surface into popularity was a CGI baby dancing and it used to crack people up. Memes can be as dumb as ever but as long as everyone has a good laugh, they’ll spread it around and boom, a new popular meme is born. The idea of imitation, sarcasm, and randomness about anything in the media is what appeals to the mass audience since it’s funny and entertaining.
Through the evolution of time, memes have gained a large audience to the point where it has consumed an entire generation of people known as the Gen Z’s, as well as some Millennials. Almost every teen and young adult scrolls through their social media daily and follows meme pages to have a laugh. Although it may seem boring to ‘Boomers’, youngsters have been looking at memes every day throughout the years, and they’ve learned to adapt to it; to follow how it’s displayed, to be more sarcastic and learn more about this weird world since people make fun of almost everything. Through the popularity of it, memes build communities and bonds due to the relativity of reacting and joking about it at any given place or time.
Gif by Garret Stienissen on Instagram
As you can see from the GIF above, memes work anywhere in any momentary use. People do relate to memes sometimes since it helps some realise that they’re not the only odd ones out. Some people would consider those who consume a lot of memes to be weird and ultimately cast them away in the shadows. Knowing that they can still depend on memes to have a laugh helps them know that they are not alone and that they have someone to relate to which can help build up their confidence. I mean, being weird is better than being basic, am I right? However, one of the things most people don’t realise is that memes actually unconsciously affect our minds since we consume so much of it. We eventually feel numb or desensitized to the issues happening in the real world because some people would rather make memes to cope than handling real-world situations. So, what’s the solution? Joking about it.
“Look at all those chickens” meme
Photo by Imgflip
This brings us to the foul language of memes. Due to the high consumption of memes, people tend to stray away from the innocence as memes are slowly progressing from simple jokes to joking about adultery, poverty, political issues, and many more. The media tends to avoid any controversy which would only increase the number of people joking around real-world problems due to feeling restrained from the drama. As we all know, some people find it entertaining when dramas occur so this would just give them more content to read up on, especially with the existence of TikTok.
This has also influenced children to be vulgar in today’s day and age as it has been proven that children will learn what they see. Nowadays, parents don’t have enough time to spend with their children, so they would just provide them with a phone or a tablet for entertainment. Sadly, it isn’t a Gameboy or a PSP, those were the good old days. Instead, it’s YouTube and TikTok. Since young children are educated by what’s in front of them, it’s no surprise that they would pick up the slangs and terms in memes.
Overall, this culture has had a lot of impact on Gen Z’s. However, as time goes by, more people are oblivious to the consequences of their actions while some have the problem of justifying between what’s right and wrong. Memes have undeniably expanded to a common language that we all share and understand, but will the ‘memers’ realize their power? Who knows how far it’ll go? Will Trump still be a meme in 10 years? Stick around to find out.
By: Garret Stienissen